General Question

Why do younger men leave their young wives/girlfriends for older women?

just a general question?
My husband who is 32 left me (29) for a 39 year old, and I’m just curious as to why a man might do this? Is this something I should always be fearful of? To be left for an older woman in future relationships? Thanks !

It’s usually the other way around, men in their 40 s and 50s looking for women that are 30.

There is an attraction for older women as a dalliance but not so much as a long term (more than 5 years) partner. Older women are more comfortable in their sexuality, more confident, and willing to explore more.

And women your are age are often very open to older men who are more patient sexually, more mindful of the woman’s satisfaction, and not just focused on getting themselves off.

He wants someone who he can’t have children with. He doesn’t need to use birth control. 39 is right up their. Or maybe it is the opposite he wants a girl who’s biological clock is ticking and he wants kids. Maybe he wants variety in his mates. Just in case he is missing something.

I know you are trying to figure out why he has left you, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the woman he is now seeing. I don’t think he left you for another woman. I think he left you because he is not a good person. He can’t stick it out with you during your pregnancy makes him a jerk and you won’t see that now, but someday you will.

Seven years is not that much older. IMO women around 40 are at their peak. They’re smart, they know what they want and they know how to keep a man happy. A woman who has taken care of herself is at max attractiveness around 35–40, again I.M.O. It’s not something you should be fearful of though, why he left you for her is beyond what we can possibly know. Leaving you pregnant is pretty crappy though. I would not get too hung up on him, concentrate on your child.

@M1952 there undoubtedly are a number of reasons and you will drive yourself mad trying to guess what they are. It could be related to her age, but that seems unlikely. Perhaps as @talljasperman suggests she offers a relationship without the responsibility and pressure of a new baby? Perhaps something wasn’t working for him in your relationship before you got pregnant and rightly or wrongly, having her there has given him the opportunity to walk away from you. Some people don’t seem to be able to leave one relationship until they have another to take up with. It may have nothing whatsoever to do with ‘her’ and who she is. She may just be the panacea that has allowed him to leave.

For you right now, I think you need to focus on how you can look after yourself and your unborn child. As impossible as I know it is, try not to get lost in the ‘why her and not me’ situation. It really won’t help and you can only guess at his real reasons. If you can’t talk to your family, perhaps you can organise to see a counsellor outside your family. I’m not sure if they have subsidised counselling where you are but having an objective ear to listen to you might help you debrief and find some peace.

People such as you describe never really grew up. Life gets mundane, or hard, or whatever, and so they go looking for that feeling they had when they first were in love, in lust, or whatever. Sometimes they are so damaged, they are incapable of anything that smacks of stability, integrity, or altruism. In short, they’re a 3 alarm mess.

If it were my son, I sure wouldn’t let him run back home to mommy! His mom’s a piece of work too.

@M1952 The question @LuckyGuy asked was does she earn a high salary. I wondered the same thing.

They aren’t that far apart in age since they are both in their 30’s. If he was 22 and she 29 then I would wonder what the hell she sees in him, but since everyone is in their 30’s it isn’t that out of whack.

Men usually go for younger women.

He is not a good man, so trying to figure out why he did what he did will never make sense, because it won’t make sense to good people.

Also, she is not a good woman assuming she knew he was married.

They won’t last, don’t worry.

Should you always be a little fearful a man might cheat? I think you should look for the signs before getting married. Don’t ignore the red flags. My guess is he had some red flags.

you’re absolutely right! @snowberry his mom really is a piece of work, I tried to go to them for help after he filed, not financial, just piece of mind really and they told me he owes me nothing and I should put the baby up for adoption.

very true. He was still in love with his ex when we first met, to the point of slight stalking, he would drive by her house everyday and I never knew until his friend accidentally told me lol that caused a severe argument. The situation is sad but it’s probably best.

@M1952 You need to eventually evaluate what you want in a relationship and have higher standards. If most men in your life, family, and circle of friends are macho, womanizer, assholes, you need a new circle of friends. There are good men out there. For now, focus on your pregnancy and getting a job.

He is a dick, beginning, middle and end. It’s terrible what he’s done to you, and he will dump her too. I am a middle aged sex worker and I see mostly young men. So age doesn’t really matter when it comes to who they have sex with. And I mean really hot, professional footy players that you would think have all the sex they want with young women. Just saying,

Bottom line is you ended up in pain. One good thing is you got rid of a useles piece of s#@t. He would have just been a burden on you. Focus on getting yourself and your kids on your feet and let the other “lady” have him until one of them decides to move on!

I think he left you because you are pregnant. He does not want the responsibility of raising a kid, and I strongly suspect he will leave his new partner as soon as she has a roast in the oven.
He is an arse, and you should not waste any tears on him.

Think back and answer honestly. (You don’t have to answer here. Answer to yourself.)
7 months ago were you two having problems already?
6 months and one day ago were you using birth control? Did you believe you two were a stable couple, willing to bring a child into this world?
Did he feel you both made a stable couple and was willing to bring a child into the world?
When you found out you were pregnant, did the discussion of abortion come up? (I believe it is “woman’s body, woman’s decision.” but that is another discussion.)
Did you think he would stay if he saw the child?
Did you make the decision to keep the child against his wishes? (of course it is your right.)
Now he is making a decision.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with his choice or yours. I am just putting it out there to help clarify our understanding and maybe your thinking.
Decisions like these are rarely made in a vacuum.
I wish you well.

Just my musing but I think he left with the “first available option” and that her age did not enter into it. Actually, the age difference is not that great.
Chances are great that he was not enthralled with the idea of being a father in the first place and she was amenable to his advances. I would guess that they have been at it for at least half of the time since you all met.
I also think he would have left anyway even if they had not met.
Good luck and please give your family an opportunity to help you and your child. You can make it on your own but it will be harder and probably not necessary. They will, or can, provide a stable base of both physical and mental support that you will need as a single mom.

I see from your earlier questions he made it quite clear he did not want any part of this child. He did not want visitation and his parents supported his choice. They suggested you put the child up for adoption.
I’m just guessing you wanted the child and he did not. Were you using birth control? If not, did he think you were? (I consider that a crime by the way. But that, too, is another issue.)
You made the choice to keep the child, against his and his family’s wishes. You cannot force him to stay. Doing fast math I see it only took about 8 weeks months for him to file the papers. I’ll bet you had some pretty “interesting” discussions when you first told him you were pregnant.

Again, you made the choice to keep the child. Now you need to do what is necessary to keep that child clothed, fed, educated, healthy. That should be your number 1 priority.

I mean my family is only 2 hours away, it’s just not something I like talking about with them, I find it rather embarrassing.

Swallow your pride. They will know soon enough; why not now when perhaps they can help you on all fronts. You cannot do this alone; raising an infant, and your toddler, going through an acrimonious divorce and all of the other profound issues would sink anyone.

Forget about him; he is a &hit and given his history, will probably always be one

Flagellating yourself for huge lapses of judgment in the past is not helpful either. Today, this minute and the choices you make now are all that count.

The more positive relationships that the child can have, the better. Instead of your relationship with your family being a negative, turn it into a positive and this will create lasting memories for your child. Don’t be isolated. It takes a village to raise a child. It really does. Swallow your pride and hopefully it will turn out great, as far as your family goes. Heck, if you were here in NY I’d throw you a shower myself and invite your family! :)

This man just skips around from girl to girl. He started with the OP while still obsessing about his prior girlfriend. He is fucking around while she is pregnant, very common among chronic cheaters. Believe me, I knew a whole extended family of chronic cheaters and they all were screwing other women even when their wives were carrying their babies. They had sex in the back alley with other employees behind where they worked, they had sex in the bathroom at work. If their wife was tired and didn’t want to go to the family Sunday soccer game they took a girlfriend with them. It is unbelieveable what is “normal” in some families.

@LuckyGuy Why are you pushing so hard the idea that the OP must have deliberately tricked her husband into getting her pregnant? It is extremely ungenerous, indeed even cruel, for you to accuse her of this.

I’m with @LuckyGuy on this one, it seems unlikely that a guy who was all in favor of having kids one week is going to be bolting out the door as soon as she got pregnant. There is a whole other side of the story that we aren’t hearing and probably a reason why the fathers parents are unwilling to help and don’t think she should be having that kid.

@gailcalled I seem to remember the OP said his family thinks she should give the baby away or abort or something, I don’t remember exactly. She also said he isn’t rich, he doesn’t drive a fancy car or anything, but he does ok, he works construction. That sentence tells you they are not like you or me or @LuckyGuy or many other people giving advice. Hopefully, the OP can move on to better things in her life.

We would not translate what type of car someone drives as an indicator of how much money they have. Would you? Would you mention the car someone drives when talking about their salary or wealth?

Unfortunately, I have a whole picture of this relationship, I am sure some of my assumptions are wrong though. I dated a cheater, liar, loves material things and never thought about saving any money type of guy, I know the breed. Again, some of my assumptions could be off, but I bet I can come close.

@dappled_leaves I was not haranguing her. I think you know me better than that. She was basically asking what went wrong and I was offering a possibility for his reasoning – and his family’s, by the way! I reread some of the previous questions and her comments and thought there might be more to the story – much more.

Either way, as I noted above, her first priority is now the child. She needs to move on and not cling to the hope that he will change his mind and rip up the divorce papers that he started.

@gailcalled both of our families are well aware of what he’s done, and his choices. He did just decide to leave after I got pregnant because he cheated on me, I think I mentioned that. All he does now is go to car shows, takes his girlfriend out to fancy dinners and goes to the gym. I just think he decided he would rather not be weighed down with a child because he’s immature, he says he’s doing what makes him happy now.

I’m not surprised his family said those things to me, they’re insane, they were excited when we found out I was expecting, posting it all over Facebook for the whole family to see. His sister has 3 kids by 2 different fathers and none of those children have met their fathers, so I mean obviously they could care less wether he is in the baby’s life or not. His mother is another piece of work, her and her husband have been separated 20 years but she still begs and cries for him to pay her rent, and all their children are in their 30’s, and his mother nor his sister who I just mentioned work. They’re just crazy, so I can see where my husband gets it.

@M1952 Sucks. People like that put pressure on family members to stay just as screwed up as they are themselves. God forbid their child, sibling, or cousin live a better life and make them feel inferior.

Honestly, if your soon to be ex will ignore the child I think you are better off, and so is the kid. I hate to say it. Do you want your children to have that influence in their lives? If you have a son and he winds up like his dad will it drive you crazy? If you have a daughter and she winds up attracted to men like her dad will it drive you crazy? If your answer is yes, then you need to treat yourself as well as you would want your daughter treated and surround your kids with good people.

@JLeslie I know he is bad for me and my children, it’s just hard to accept because I am pregnant and emotional, I cry everyday because I can’t understand it, he was a good father to my daughter, and then everything just stopped and he started hanging out with a different group of friends and started seeing more of this girl he’s with now, it just sucks, and it sucks knowing his family are getting off on knowing how much I am hurting because I’ve gone to them several times but they tell me to move on and that I should give up the baby for adoption, we were all very close before, I know it sounds strange but that’s the main reason I’m having such a hard time dealing.

Of course you are having a hard time. It is perfectly understandable. He has taken away the future you imagined, robbed you of that dream. It’s heartbreaking.

Ill tell you, when my exboyfriend (the cheater) and I broke up I was devastated. I was ok at first, but then I found out he SA dating someone else. Anyway, I called his mom and some other family members desparate. His mom said, “you know my sons are terrible. Find someone else who will be good to you.” In retrospect I see she knew we would be miserable together, because her son would be a womanizer, he already was, just like his father and brother and most of his cousins. She was trying to help me. She knew I did not come from that environment and wouldn’t tolerate it well in the long run. When she was 19 and pregnant with her first baby her husband was cheating and she went home to her mother crying. Her mother told her, “your married and pregnant, you have to go back to your husband.” I think she lived through a lot things in her life that sucked and wished her opportunities would have been different as a woman.

I haven’t read all the comments above, so forgive me if someone already said what I am about to say. I read up to where you said you are 6 months pregnant. Don’t assume he left you because of her age and your age. It belittles the both of you. It makes it sound as if you are less than her or she is less than you. Truth is, he is less than the both of you. She didn’t get a deal when she got him.

She is no prize because she probably knew he was married when she persued the relationship or at the very least didn’t end it when she found out he was married. She will always feel insecure every time he is around a pretty woman. She knows that she is getting a man with no morals who is selfish.

He will never again be in a relationship where he can be trusted. The real question you should be asking is :Was the marriage a failure because you both were not ready or was it a failure because he was not ready to share his life with anyone.

Look for answers but not for blame. Only look for answers so that you can move on. He is going to be the babies father so you have to find a way to make peace with it. The life you carry will always be a part of him and that child needs to feel love. If he choses not to be a dad, than, just collect child support and love the child enough for two people. The rest of life will sort itself out.

Short answer to your question is, He left because he didn’t love you enough and have enough strength of character to stick around and keep his vows and make things work. It was simply easier to go to someone else who was desperate enough to ignore his flaws.